By Nina Glaser, Montessori Family School, Kensington
My Grandma, Estelle, grew up in Warsaw, Poland. She went to school, read, and played with her friends. When school was over, my Grandma and her family would go on vacation to a place not far from Warsaw. It had great meadows, green grasses, woods, forests and lakes. There were many trees in the forests and woods. My Grandma and her sister, Frieda, would often play hide-and-seek in the trees. They also imagined that little elves lived in the pine and birch trees. When my Grandma saw sunlight flicker through the trees, she and Frieda would pretend that it was gold for them.
When my Grandma was still a little girl, the Germans invaded Warsaw during World War II. Bombs were dropping from the sky. After the bombs ceased you would look outside and see that some of the people that you loved were gone, and you would wish that everything was good again. The Germans beat the Jewish people roughly, stole stuff from other people’s houses, took a lot of property away from people and stole farmers’ crops. They put the people of Warsaw in a ghetto, and closed all the schools because they thought that it was harder to control people who were smart. But my Grandma and her friends made a secret school; every day they would go to the secret school and hide their schoolbooks in their shirts so that the Germans wouldn’t see them. After being in the ghetto, my Grandma, her family, and friends were taken to three concentration camps before they came to the United States. The first camp they went to was Maidanek, the death camp. My Grandma’s dad, my great great grandpa, was killed. The second camp they went to, Skarzysko, was a work/labor camp. The third camp, Czestochowa, was also a work/labor camp. The people there had to walk to places in wooden shoes; they were cold and hungry; they wore no underwear or stockings. Life was horrible.
After the war, my Grandma, Frieda, friends and family were taken to Germany and placed in a displaced persons camp. There, they had to wait a long time for a ship to take them somewhere else. When the ship came, my Grandma, Frieda, their mother, and other refugees from the displaced persons camp, got onto the ship and the ship left from Bremerhaven Germany and headed for New York City. The ride on the ship was not pleasant. The people barely got any food, people felt seasick, the ship was shaking. There was no Dramamine in those days. The people also had to sleep on hammocks like soldiers. Even though the ride was not very comfortable, people wondered what they would find and see in America. The first thing my Grandma saw when they approached New York City was the Statue of Liberty.
When the ship landed and the people got off, my Grandma did not know anyone. She didn’t even know how to speak English. Friendly people in New York City helped Grandma, Frieda and their mother find jobs. My Grandma found job in a button factory where she had to sew buttons on clothes by hand. Frieda found work in a garment/clothing factory. Their mother never found a job, because it was hard for her to adjust. My Grandma and Frieda learned English by hearing it where they worked and by going to the library and reading children’s nursery rhyme books and gradually started reading harder and harder books until they were fluent in English. Their mother never learned much English. My Grandma, Frieda and their mother had to wait three or five years before passing a test to become a United States citizen.
After a few years, my Grandma got married and had three children. When my Dad was three years old and my Dad’s brother was three months old, Grandma went to college. She went to school with people that didn’t speak English very well. She became a teacher.
My Grandma still speaks Polish with her friend Halina, from Poland. Halina was not in a concentration camp because she pretended she was not Jewish. During the war, Warsaw was destroyed and not one single building was left. After the war, they rebuilt Warsaw, and it looks like it used to. My Grandma never went back to Warsaw because she told me that it isn’t like it used to be. But one day, she will go back to her home and hopefully, take me and my cousin with her.
Right now, my Grandma is alive and living in Washington D.C. Her sister, Frieda, died about a year ago in 2005. Their mother died when my Dad was in high school.
I am very proud of my Grandma for being so strong and living such a brave life.
Thanks to: My Mom for helping me and my Dad and my Grandma for telling me this true story. I love them all.
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